Mehsana court acquits Jignesh Mevani, nine others in 2017 rally case

A sessions court in Mehsana district on Wednesday junked a lower court's order of three-month jail term for Dalit rights activist and Congress MLA Jignesh Mevani and nine of his associates and acquitted them in a 2017 case.

They had been booked for taking out 'Azadi March', a public rally, from Mehsana town to Dhanera in Banaskantha without police permission. The court termed the prosecution's case "baseless".

Additional sessions judge C M Pawar exonerated Mevani and others by citing Article 19 of the Constitution, which confers the right to peaceful protest and freedom of expression on citizens.

"Right of freedom enshrined in the Constitution is not only for academic purposes but in fact it is the founding stone of a democratic nation.

In a democratic set-up, deliberations, discussions, debates and bona fide dissent against the policies of the government and even bona fide criticism of government inaction are essential to the existence of democracy in the nation," the judge noted in the order.

On May 5, 2022, a judicial magistrate in Mehsana held Mevani and others, including NCP functionary Reshma Patel and members of Mevani's Rashtriya Dalit Adhikar Manch, guilty of being party to an unlawful assembly under Section 143 of the IPC.

The magistrate had also imposed a fine of Rs 1,000 on each of the 10 convicts.

The cops had named 12 persons in the FIR, one of whom died, and one was absconding at the time of the trial.

Setting aside the lower court's order, the judge noted that there was no restriction imposed by the authorities by invoking Section 144 of the CrPC prohibiting gathering in public places and therefore the case of unlawful assembly is baseless.